t is time we savour each innings Sachin plays

To write something about Sachin Tendulkar is perhaps the most difficult task confronting a scholar working on cricket. While not as difficult as scaling the peak of a double hundred in ODIs, it is certainly an arduous task for any contemporary sportswriter.

Everything about the maestro has been written; millions of pages of newsprint have analysed his strokes, deconstructed his batting and applauded his humility and patriotism. What more can you say about the legend that your readers will find interesting to read?

Having thus prepared my defences, let me turn this piece into an assertion, one that is gradually becoming contemporary cricket's most significant debate - that Sachin Tendulkar is the greatest cricketer ever to have played the game, greater than our very own SMG, the celebrated Vivian Richards and even the legendary Sir Donald Bradman.

While acknowledging that these debates are impossible to definitively settle and comparisons across eras have little basis in fact on occasions, the very fact that Sachin has scored 93 international hundreds and that he has played with the pressure of a billion-plus expecting miracles for well over 20 years places him at a pedestal above all cricketers to have played the game at the highest level.

Yes, Sachin can never hope to equal Sir Donald's staggering Test match batting average of 99.94, but the versatility and adaptability that Sachin has shown isn't something Sir Donald was ever needed to demonstrate. The varied conditions at which Sachin has played and thrived, the burden of the heavy expectations that he has shouldered for two decades and the intensity and humility with which he has played the game, truly makes him the greatest.

While acknowledging Bradman's Test batting average, one is also forced to introduce into the debate that special series when his average had fallen drastically to 56 plus, one in which Sir Donald had looked mortal while faced with the guile of the shrewd Douglas Jardine and his bowling spearhead Harold Larwood.

Did Bradman actually not play the first game of that series in 1932-33, one in which Stan McCabe scored a brilliant 187 against hostile bodyline bowling? A definitive answer to this question we will never know, but there are enough doubts to suggest that Sachin is certainly on the same pedestal as Bradman, if not a notch above.

With technology deconstructing each move of the modern day batsman and with fielding having improved several notches over the years, the modern sportsman needs to be that much more fit to survive at the international level. And to have played 443 one-day internationals and over 160 Test matches means Sachin's physical ability is no less superhuman than his batting talent.

He has actually played over 1,265 days of international cricket, a statistic staggering enough to send a cold chill down the spine of any contemporary sportsman. Add to this his comment that he would once again love to bat 50 overs and you will have an opportunity of a sneak peak into the mental frame of the maestro.

Yes, Bradman had catapulted Australia from the throes of a depression and had batted in a way in which only he could, but did Bradman ever have to face the adulation and expectations of a billion plus sports fans, who have little else but cricket to invest in? Indian cricket is the country's only secular religion and Sachin is one responsible for nurturing and fanning this passion for over two decades.

The other striking feature of Sachin, which endears him to us all, is his nationalism. A cursory glance into his cricket gear and it is apparent who he plays for. The Tricolour is always visible on his helmet, his gloves are specially designed with the colours of the Indian flag and he has a flag pinned to his cricket coffin.

Finally, when you hear him utter those immortal words - "My name is Sachin Tendulkar and I play for India" - the debate is put to rest once and for all. Sachin isn't a cricketer; he is a phenomenon and an icon who we are blessed to see practice his art in front of our eyes. Just like all things great, Sachin's cricket career too will come to an end in two or three years.

However, his end will be with a difference. With his retirement, cricket, India's favourite obsession, will be rendered poorer, something that has never perhaps happened before.

So it is time we savour each innings he plays and celebrate each catch he takes and ready ourselves for his last battle on home turf - the battle to win the 2011 World Cup for India.

He had brought his team close in South Africa seven years earlier; perhaps it is time to go the distance come February-March 2011. Here's wishing him all the very best in the coming months.

Boria Majumdar

- The writer is a cricket historian